Adult Learning and Technology in Working-Class Life (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives) - Hardcover

Sawchuk, Peter

 
9780521817561: Adult Learning and Technology in Working-Class Life (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
Hardcover
ISBN 10: 0521817560 ISBN 13: 9780521817561
Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2003

Synopsis

This book explores the hidden world of everyday learning in the lives of manufacturing workers from a social perspective. It challenges the myth that everyday learning, despite its apparent openness and freedom, can be understood as class-neutral. Based on life-history interviews, selected ethnographic observations in homes and factories, and large-scale survey materials as well as the microanalysis of human-computer interaction, the analysis follows learning across the spheres of "working-class life" and draws on the author's personal experiences as a factory worker and academic.

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Book Description

This book explores the hidden world of everyday learning in the lives of manufacturing workers in Canada from a social perspective with a focus on computers. It explodes the myth that this everyday learning, despite its apparent openness and freedom, can be understood as class-neutral. Based on life-history interviews, selected ethnographic observations in homes and factories, large-scale survey materials as well as microanalysis of human computer interaction, the analysis explores learning across the various spheres of 'working-class life.' Drawing on personal experiences as a factory worker and academic, the author offers the most detailed examination of learning amongst working-class people currently available.

Review

"Sawchuk is able to detect subtle strategies used by workers to increase their own store of cultural capital at the employers' expense. His analysis also succeeds at relating the concerns of Marxists with relations of production to those of postmodernists focused on identity formation and cultural appropriation. The result is a new set of perspectives on the relationships suggested in the title, and a new appreciation of the complexity of those relationships." American Journal of Sociology

"...engaging..." Labour/Le Travail

"This is a complex work with a social improvement goal.... Recommended." Choice

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Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Publication date
2003
Language
English
ISBN 10 
0521817560
ISBN 13 
9780521817561
Binding
Hardcover
Number of pages
272